National Dems pledge $10M for Hobbs as GOP group stays silent on Biggs

Gov. Katie Hobbs’ reelection campaign is celebrating a $10 million boost from the Democratic Governors Association as she ramps up to face Republican gubernatorial nominee Andy Biggs. 

DGA announced its spending plan early Tuesday, acknowledging it views Arizona as having the closest race for governor in the nation. 

“As national Republicans are set to pour millions into this race to try to make Andy Biggs the first election denier in charge of a swing state, the stakes are incredibly high and the DGA is keeping its foot on the gas to ensure Gov. Hobbs is re-elected and can continue putting Arizona first,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, DGA’s chairman, said in a statement. 

Biggs, a veteran Republican congressman and the former leader of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, blew away his opponent David Schweikert in the July 21 Republican primary, beating him by a whopping 60 percentage points, according to initial unofficial vote tallies posted by the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.

Biggs’ campaign panned Hobbs for spending big during the primary, calling it “pathetic” that she had only $2.4 million in the bank, compared to his nearly $1.2 million, after she outfundraised him by nearly five times. 

In the second quarter of 2026, Hobbs raised $2.6 million but during the same time she spent $7.4 million as she launched a high-dollar advertising campaign boasting about her record as governor. Her campaign spending in those three months was more than twice what Biggs has raised since he launched his bid for governor.

During the same time, Biggs raised about $916,700 and spent $770,000. The Republican Governors Association, which released a statement celebrating Biggs’ primary win last week, has not yet dedicated any money to Biggs’ reelection, the Washington Post reported. 

During the last Arizona gubernatorial election cycle, the RGA announced eight months before Election Day that it would put $10.2 million toward keeping a Republican in the governor’s office. But this year, with only a little more than three months before voters head to the polls, the RGA hadn’t committed anything to helping Biggs take the governor’s office. 

The RGA did not respond to the Arizona Mirror’s request for information about its spending plans on the race during this election cycle.

“The DGA is having to spend $10M to try and save Katie Hobbs because they’re seeing the same things we’re seeing: she’s weak, vulnerable, and has nothing to run on for Arizonans,” Drew Sexton, a senior advisor for the Biggs campaign, told the Mirror. 

Minutes after Biggs was announced the presumptive primary winner on July 21, the Hobbs campaign put out its first attack ads, and was still on the offensive a week later. 

“While Andy Biggs’ campaign flounders because he sided with a corrupt pedophile cult over Arizona families, Gov. Hobbs is bringing Republicans, Democrats, and Independents together to lower costs, secure the border, and deliver for working families,” Michael Beyer, a spokesman for the Hobbs campaign, told the Arizona Mirror in a statement. “Even Washington Republicans who funded Kari Lake’s failed run are admitting Biggs is a weaker candidate.”

The “corrupt pedophile cult” Beyer referred to is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a polygamous and insular religious sect that split from the mainstream LDS Church in the early 20th century. In addition to polygamy, the splinter sect also practices child marriage, with girls as young as nine years old being forced into marriages with older men and church leaders.

In 2013, when Biggs was the president of the Arizona Senate, proposed legislation that would have done away with the Colorado City Marshal’s Office died in his chamber after he refused to bring it to a vote. The measure, which passed with broad bipartisan support in the state House of Representatives, was touted by supporters as necessary after accusations that law enforcement agency was controlled by the FLDS. The bill’s Republican sponsor blamed Biggs for its failure. 

In 2011, FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, 55, was sentenced to life in prison by a Texas jury for sexually assaulting two girls, aged 12 and 15, that he claimed were his “spiritual wives.” And Samuel Bateman, one of Jeffs’ trusted followers who started an offshoot of FLDS,  is serving a 50-year sentence in federal prison for “orchestrating sex involving children.” Bateman, 50, was convicted in June of additional state child abuse charges, the Associated Press reported. 

The Biggs campaign told the Washington Post that the legislation the Hobbs campaign referred to was poorly written and opposed by the Arizona Police Association. The Biggs campaign went on to criticize Hobbs’ record on law enforcement, blaming her for an increase in fentanyl overdoses. 

“Katie Hobbs, who is currently under criminal investigation, has made Arizonans less safe and our lives more expensive through her chaos and incompetence,” Sexton said. “Hobbs has vetoed bills to crack down on fentanyl dealers as our state’s fentanyl death rate has skyrocketed, she’s driven the costs of housing up through her harmful housing moratorium, and her Green New Deal-style priorities have hurt Arizona families and ranchers as utility rates climb.”

Democratic Arizona Attorney Kris Mayes is investigating accusations that Sunshine Residential Homes Inc. was approved for increased pay rates after its executives donated hundreds of thousands to Hobbs’ campaign. 

The Hobbs campaign sought to highlight Biggs’ election denialism and his support from President Donald Trump, whose approval rating is at an all-time low of 34%. 

“Andy Biggs is running with the full-throated support of Donald Trump and Turning Point USA after leading the charge to overturn the 2020 election, voting as a rubber stamp for the GOP’s cost-hiking policies, and even making us all less safe by covering for predators,” Bashear said. 

The DGA noted the difficulty for its candidates to win statewide office in Arizona, where Republicans have about 300,000 more registered voters than Democrats. Joe Biden narrowly won the Grand Canyon State in 2020 by around 10,000 votes, and Hobbs beat Lake by about 17,000 votes in 2022. But Trump won the state in 2024. 

“While Arizona is always one of the toughest battleground states, Gov. Hobbs is entering the general election from a strong position because she’s brought both parties together to deliver results that make life better for working families – just like the one she grew up in,” Bashear said. 

DGA described the governor’s race this year as “a true tossup.”